Can I go back to work and still take care of my mom? How families layer in hours so a daughter can take a job again

Can I go back to work and still take care of my mom? Yes, if the hours are covered before you say yes to the job. Daughters who take the job first and hope to cover the hours afterwards end up quitting a second time, and the second time is worse. So this page is an order of operations: count what a job takes out of the week, decide who covers each of those hours, have the agency conversation, and then interview.

Count the hours the job takes

A full time job is 40 hours plus the commute, so call it 45 out of your 168. Part time might be 20 plus travel. Draw it on the bar. The bar at the top of this page shows 40 gold hours, and gold on this site means hours you are off, but here it means something more specific: hours somebody else is with her while you are at work. Every one of those hours needs a name on it before the first day. If four are blank, the plan has a hole, and holes are where the second resignation comes from.

Should I go back part time first?

Most daughters who have done this went back part time first, for two reasons. A smaller block is easier to cover, and covering it teaches you what a standing block costs and how it feels to walk out of the house on a Tuesday. And the federal job protection you may be counting on does not begin on day one. The Department of Labor's summary of the Family and Medical Leave Act says employees are eligible only if they work for a covered employer for at least 12 months, have at least 1,250 hours of service with the employer during the 12 months before their FMLA leave starts, and work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles. A part time job may never reach 1,250 hours in a year. Know that before you rely on it.

Who covers each block

The hours split into kinds, and each kind has a different door.

Mornings and evenings. Usually still you. Getting her up and to bed is the part most daughters keep, because it is the part that still feels like being her daughter. Keep it if you want it. Give it up if the mornings are what broke you.

The working block, if she can leave the house. The National Institute on Aging's definition of respite includes care at an adult day care center, and Aging Ahead's Family Caregiver Support Program lists adult day services among the supports it may fund for unpaid caregivers, as funding permits. Adult day is the closest thing to a school day for a parent: a start time, an end time and other people. Ask Aging Ahead at (636) 207-0847 what exists near her and whether the program can help with it.

The working block, if she cannot. Then someone comes to the house. If she is on Medicaid and meets Missouri's assessment, the state's in-home services are one door, requested by the HCBS referral form online or by calling 1-866-835-3505. If she is an enrolled veteran, the VA's respite program can pay for a person to come to a Veteran's home while the family caregiver takes a break, with eligibility that depends on clinical criteria and local availability. And for the hours no program covers, which for most working daughters in this metro is most of them, the door is private non-medical hours: a company that sends a caregiver for a fixed block on fixed days. New Plan Care is one such company, and a paid placement on this site, labelled below. Ask any company for a standing weekday block that matches the job, and ask the rate on the phone. No rate is printed here.

The gap hours. The half hour between the caregiver leaving and you getting home. The Friday the day program is closed. Those sink plans, and they belong to the key holder from your backup page. Name them and name who has them.

What does FMLA protect once I am employed again?

Once you are eligible, quite a lot, and it is worth knowing the exact shape. The Department of Labor's fact sheet says FMLA provides up to 12 workweeks of leave in a 12-month period, that one qualifying reason is the care for a child, spouse, or parent who has a serious health condition, that the leave is job-protected but unpaid, and that employees have the right to take it all at once or, when medically necessary, in separate blocks of time or by reducing the time they work each day or week. That last part is the one working daughters use: a reduced week during a bad stretch, without losing the job. Unpaid, remember. It protects the job, not the paycheck.

The conversation to have with an agency before the interview

Have it before, because the answers change which jobs you can take. The Family Caregiver Alliance's hiring guide notes that hiring through an agency gives you some choice of attendant, and that if you feel uncomfortable with the person sent, you can ask the agency for someone else. Beyond that, ask five things. Can you cover a standing block on the same days each week, starting at the time I actually leave? What happens when the caregiver is sick? How much notice do you need to change a day? Will the same person come most days, so that my mother is not meeting a stranger each morning? And who do I call at 7:10am when nobody has arrived? Write the answers down. Then apply.

What if she says she does not want a stranger here?

She will, probably. The Family Caregiver Alliance's advice is to tell her that you need help, and that accepting hired care is something she can do to help you, not a sign you are going to abandon her, and to be present for the first visits so the caregiver learns the routine from you. Frame it as what it is: you are going back to work, and this is how she keeps you.

The money, without a price

This site never prints an hourly rate, but it can say how the arithmetic goes. Medicare will not pay for the working block: its home health page rules out custodial or personal care that helps with daily living activities when that is the only care needed. So the block is either a funded program, if she qualifies, or private pay, from her funds or yours. A paid job changes that sum in the obvious direction, which is why part time first is also the financially sane order: earn a little, cover a little, and see whether the two numbers meet. If they do not, the page on money doors is where to look for the difference.